After a sudden-victory thriller on Tuesday, any future match-up of the two teams will be must-see. 

F&M senior Erin Dunne scored a sudden-victory goal off a free-position shot with 1:16 left to bring the Diplomats all the way back to a thrilling win over their central Pennsylvania rivals, 15-14. The Diplomats had trailed 12-8 with 7:57 remaining in regulation. 

"This is a really hard loss for us to take," Messiah head coach Heather Greer said. "(F&M) is a really talented team and no lead is ever large enough against them. They made big plays to get back into the game and win."

Messiah, ranked #12 in the most recent IWLCA Top 20 rankings, seemed poised to take the rematch of the 2011 NCAA Second Round win by the Diplomats. The Falcons took an early 3-0 lead behind two goals from junior Cecilia Kjellman. Messiah extended its lead to 5-1 with goals from senior Meghan Doolittle and junior Gabrielle Hamelryck. After F&M scored twice, Kjellman collected her third goal of the half to give Messiah an early 6-3 advantage.

They would take a 6-4 lead into intermission.

"We played really well in the first half," Greer said. "We took good shots and we were aggressive at the right times."

The second half started furiously for Greer's squad. Senior Rachel Dirksen and Kjellman each scored a goal before Doolittle added two more goals of her own to put Messiah ahead 10-4. After a goal by the Diplomats, Dirksen tallied another goal to give the Falcons an 11-5 lead with 13:53 on the clock.

At that point, the Diplomats outscored Messiah 7-1 to tie the game at 12-12 and force overtime. The equalizer in regulation was scored by Dunne with 1:13 left to play.

"We played really well for three-quarters of the game," Greer said, reflecting on her team's dominance of F&M through the first 45 of the 60 regulation minutes. "In that last part of the game, we made too many poor decisions and we weren't sharp at all."

Now knotted at 12-12, the teams entered overtime in a regular-season game for the second straight year. Last year, Messiah came away with a 10-9 win in a game played in West Palm Beach, Fl.

On this day, the overtime period-- two, mandatory 3:00 halves-- started favorably for Messiah. Junior Gabrielle Hamelryck put the Falcons ahead with 0:19 left in the first half of overtime. The 13-12 lead would remain until 0:50 left in the second half of overtime, with F&M's Lauren Ehrhardt tying the game.

Nevertheless, Messiah seemed to seal the victory when sophomore Lizzy Keeney took a pass from Dirksen and scored with just 0:13 left.

But on this day the drama would favor the home team, as Dunne took a pass from teammate Ali Kelley and again tied the game-- this time at 14-14 with just 0:02 remaining in the overtime period.

In the next 3:00 period, which became "sudden-victory" after the completion of the first 6:00 of overtime, Dunne scored off a free-position shot with 1:16 left to give the Diplomats the dramatic win.

"We knew Dunne was scoring a lot of goals for them, and we expected her to be a challenge," Greer said. "Overall, we did a pretty good job on her until the final minutes of regulation and the overtime periods. Still, we know that we had our chances to win this game, and we didn't finish well."

Dunne, who came into the game averaging more than three goals a game, scored the game-tying goals in regulation and overtime to go along with the game-winner. She finished with six goals on the day.

"This loss is especially hard because we were in control so late in the game," Greer added. "F&M has been in a lot of close games and plays well when the pressure is on. For us to lose means we now have an opportunity to learn how to be better next time."

Messiah was led on the day by four goals from junior Cecilia Kjellman, and three goals and three assists from classmate Rachel Dirksen. Doolittle also scored three goals, with junior Taylor Phillips collected 11 saves in the cage.

The Falcons fall to 6-1 on the season, with the Diplomats improving to 5-1.

Messiah next plays on Saturday, March 24, when they travel to York College to take on the Spartans at 1:00 p.m.